SDSU edged by SIUE

Courtesy: SDSU Sports Info Release: 01/28/2013 11:27:34

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The South Dakota State women's and men's tennis teams were edged by SIUE, 4-3 and 6-1, respectively, on Sunday.

On the women's side, and in its second meet of the weekend, the Jackrabbits split the six singles matches with the Cougars, but SIUE won the ever-important doubles point before singles play. The point, in effect, determined the meet.

Jenny Blackburne and Ffion Davies teamed up at No. 1 for an 8-6 win versus Kali Donner and Monique Krutak. The other two SDSU doubles teams did not fare as well, however, as both suffered 8-6 defeats.

The two-out-of-three victories earned SIUE the team doubles point.

In singles, SDSU scored the first point at No. 6 singles. Tacy Haws-Lay led 2-1 in the first set when McKenzie Thomas retired.

The Jacks needed to win three of the five remaining matches to secure the team win, but was only able to win two.

Ffion Davies continued the great start to her season with a 6-4, 6-2 win versus Haley Ilcewicz at No. 3. Davies improved to 4-0 on the weekend with the two wins.

Florencia Magni notched the third SDSU point with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 win at No. 4 versus Amanda Miller. Unfortunately for the Jacks, that is where the scoring stopped.

All other SDSU singles players lost in straight setsand SIUE escaped with a 4-3 win.

The loss dropped the women's record to 0-2 on the young season.

The women are back in action on Friday, Feb. 1 at North Dakota. SDSU faces Montana State at 5 p.m. and North Dakota at 8 p.m. in Grand Forks.

On the men's side, SIUE once again escaped with the team doubles point after winning two of three matches. Mateus Moreiraand Lucas Pereira paired up for an 8-6 win at No. 3 doubles versus Gary Dias and Nicolas Vincent.

The top SDSU doubles team of James Thorp and Parker Lawley battled, but was unable to overcome a one-break lead and lost 8-6. The Cougars won at No. 2 doubles, as well, to secure the point.

In singles, the Jacks lost two matches in third sets to put the meet out of reach. After straight-set wins at No. 1, 2 and 3, the Cougars won at No. 4 and 5 in full third sets.

Parker Lawley won the first set 6-4, but fell one break behind in the second and third sets and was unable to recover (6-3, 6-4).

Mateus Moreira rebounded from an opening-set loss to win the second set in a tiebreaker, but suffered a similar fate to the first in the third.

Luis Duque was the lone bright spot on the scoreboard for SDSU, winning his third-set super tiebreaker 10-4 at No. 6 singles.

The loss dropped the men's record to 0-3 on the season.

The men take a week off from competition and return on Saturday, Feb. 9 at Marquette. Meet time is set for 10 a.m. in Milwaukee.

"A lot of good will come out of this weekend for both SDSU teams," head coach Michael Engdahl said. "The good news is we are right on the edge of tipping these matches in our favor. Both schools we played are deep programs who did not give us anything for free. We need to get back to work this week in practice. It is only a matter of time before we mature and pull out close wins against some solid schools."